Irish Film Institute partners with Axonista

The Irish Film Institute, the national cultural institution for film in Ireland, has partnered with Axonista, a video technology company, to greatly increase accessibility of its Irish moving image collection through cutting edge distribution to a variety of popular video-capable devices.

Axonista connects storytellers with technology to help them tell better stories and unlock value from their video content. Using Axonista’s Ediflo video content management system and distribution platform, the IFI Irish Film Archive can showcase their content for free to a global audience, and quickly and easily roll out beautiful video apps that are tailored to the capability of each device, and provide a great viewing experience for the user. The new apps are available from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store for iOS and Android phones, with apps for TV platforms available on Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV & Roku.

As a nation of storytellers, the IFI Player and its suite of apps allows IFI to keep the heritage material of the IFI Irish Film Archive relevant to today’s viewing consumption habits, and helps bring Irish culture and social history to audiences globally – both diaspora and new friends of Ireland alike.

On foot of the recently launched IFI Strategy 2017 – 2022, and speaking about the significance of this move for IFI and for Irish film, IFI Director Ross Keane commented, “No other Irish cultural institution has to date taken such an ambitious leap forward to share their collections with the far corners of the world – whether that be on your phone in the islands off the west coast of Ireland, or via your new smart TV on the west coast of America. As an organisation we have our eye firmly fixed on the future, and working with Axonista on the IFI Player applications allows the Irish Film Institute to address the rapidly changing digital landscape for this cultural institution and allow for the integration of future technological developments”.

Commenting on their work with the home of film in Ireland, Axonista CEO Claire McHugh said Axonista connects storytellers with new technology, to help them unlock value from their video content, whether that’s through accessing new audiences, enabling two way interactions with viewers, or providing a rich immersive viewing experience. It’s an absolute honour for the Axonista team to be involved in bringing the amazing archive of the IFI into the international spotlight. The IFI has a wealth of wonderful film of such cultural and historical significance that can now shine and be enjoyed to its full potential on multiple digital devices around the world. Our team really enjoyed working together with the IFI, and this is just the start – and we’re excited to build on this release and make the experience even richer over the coming months.”

The IFI Irish Film Archive has been on a journey of ground-breaking progress in the past couple of years through its extensive Digital Preservation and Access Strategy, becoming world leaders in digitisation processes of moving image material. The films preserved by the IFI Irish Film Archive present a vivid and unparalleled portrait of the development of modern Ireland, as seen through the cameras of both amateur and professional filmmakers. The collections span ephemeral filmic records of the domestic and everyday to the great achievements of Ireland’s filmmakers on the global stage, from the earliest films made in Ireland to all current production. Collectively this material tells Ireland’s cultural, social and political story from 1897 to the current day, and the IFI is dedicated to ensuring it is preserved and now globally accessible, on behalf of the nation, for future generations.